PARIS (AP) – Kenzo Takada, the iconic Franco-Japanese fashion designer known for his jungle creations and loose aesthetic that is channeled around the world, died at the age of 81.
The circle of relatives told French media on Sunday that Takada died of COVID-19 at a hospital in Neuilly-sur-Seine, near Paris. A public relations official from Kenzo showed takada had died, but did not give a cause. death.
“It is with wonderful sadness that KENZO learned of the passing of our founder,” fashion space said in a statement. “For part of a century, Mr. Takada has been an iconic figure in the fashion industry, instilled creativity and color in the world.
Although Takada has disposed of her home since 1999 to pursue a career in art, Kenzo remains one of the most reputable accessories in Parisian haute couture. Since 1993, the Kenzo logo has been owned by French luxury goods company LVMH. The current designer and artistic director, Felipe Oliveira Baptista, presented Kenzo’s spring/summer 2020 to fashion editors on Wednesday.
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“His energy, kindness, skill and smile were contagious,” Oliveira Baptista said. “His similar spirit will live forever. “
Kenzo’s styles used bright colors, contrasting prints and went through travels around the world.
“Kenzo Takada, since the 1970s, infused fashion with a tone of poetic lightness and slight freedom that has encouraged many designers after him,” said Bernard Arnault, president and CEO of LVMH.
Takada was born on February 27, 1939 in Himeji, Hyogo prefecture, Japan, to hoteliers, but after reading her sisters’ fashion magazines, her love for fashion began.
Kenzo Takada, a student at Bunka College of Fashion in Tokyo, painted in Japan before moving to Paris in 1965 to work as an independent designer.
In Paris, he took over a boutique in 1970 that served to crystallize his long-term prat-a-porter aesthetic, and was encouraged in his ornament through the jungle scenes of the painter Henri Rousseau, which he merged with Asian styles.
But his modest beginnings: Takada’s first collection in the store was entirely called cotton because he had little money. But the garments spoke for themselves and one of their models was placed in the canopy of Elle magazine. Soon after, pioneering forms of shoulders, wide sleeves, jumpsuits, tent dresses, avant-garde shoulder shapes and its store featured in American Vogue. Kenzo presented collections in New York and Tokyo in 1971.
Yves Saint Laurent has been a vital source of inspiration in his work, Takada said. Takada shared Saint Laurent’s association with theatre. in 1978 and 1979 he directed in a circus tent, and showed himself riding an elephant, and artists rode horses dressed in transparent uniforms.
Takada’s love and the use of ethnic influences were the highlight of his three decades at the height of his home.
Your contribution to meaningful taste. He defended a younger aesthetic and a deconstructed shape and got rid of zippers to free the silhouettes, his signatures being wider sleeves and hisses, reminiscent of the ancestral tastes of his Asian continent, his homeland.